Thalia Doesn't Get Scared
by aaquater
Summary: Admitting to weakness is never an option for Thalia. So when at school, she's obliged to write about a scary experience, can she swallow her pride and admit that there have been times when even she had felt scared?
1. Don't Let Me Drive Again, Uncle Polly!

_For half a year, I've wanted to write another essay-based story, and I finally came up with something! (Performs a bow to the computer, then looks around awkwardly when no reaction comes.)_

_It was mentioned in TTC that Annabeth and Thalia went to school together. After TTC, we don't know whether Thalia continued attending school or not. Okay, there's, like, a 99,9997921% chance that she dropped out when she joined the Hunt, but just for the sake of this story (which is going to be a two-shot), let's pretend both she and Annabeth went back to finish their eight year._

_I think it's kind of obvious from the two above paragraphs, but just in case someone didn't get it: I'm not Rick Riordan. Hence, I don't own PJatO._

_I'm sure you'll notice that this story differs a bit from the original one, but- Thalia had to cover the Ancient Greek stuff up somehow, didn't she?_

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_January 18th, 2008 Thalia, 8th Grade_

_The Scariest Experience_

_(Essay)_

_**Goal:**__ Try to describe, as much as possible, the moment when you felt the most scared._

_**Number of words:**__ Between 350 and 400_

First, you should know that Thalia doesn't get scared. Ever. That's the first rule. If you don't obey it, then the second one comes to action: Everybody who says otherwise will have to smile with punched-out teeth, Thalia style.

But if I had to pick from the situations when I've felt… _concerned_, two situations stand out. Both of them happened last December, and though I've been trying to forget about them, as neither was particularly pleasant, I guess I'll be forced to try to remember for the sake of this essay.

I'll start with the first one: my cousin and his 'awesome' driver choice. I'm ashamed to say that – no offence – but my opinion of buses, though not remarkably good before, has changed, and not for the better.

What should I start with? My older cousin has a bus. It's similar to a school bus, but with slight differences I can't exactly describe, but you'd notice them if you saw it. Or you can ask Annabeth; she's much more of a technical expert than I am.

Anyway, Annabeth, I and our friend and my younger cousin Percy were invited to a middle school party by another friend of ours, Grover. Grover attended a military school in Maine, and that's where the party was held. And we went there by car. Yup, eight hours of sitting in a small, confined space, buckled up by seatbelts that were strangling me whenever I moved a muscle. Oh joy. But there was one good side to all that; along the way, I got a lot of precious blackmail material on Percy.

I get that we were 'wanted' on the party, but still, I would've preferred if we didn't have to go. Since Percy and Annabeth were so obviously meant for each other, and only their own obliviousness kept us waiting for the moment when they finally start getting lip-locked everywhere (don't mention this to Annabeth or she'll kill me), I had to dance with Grover. To sum the experience up; Grover's dancing skills were horrible and the music was even worse. I know Grover couldn't exactly help it, with the muscular disease in his legs and all, but the party alone would've been enough to give me nightmares.

After the party, though, we accidentally met my aunt and her girls-only archery club. (Several days later, I asked my aunt to join the club, too, and she agreed, but that's another story.) Because my aunt's twin – my uncle – was supposed to pick them up with his bus and we hadn't actually thought as far as how we were going to get back to New York, we decided to wait.

When my uncle arrived, he said he didn't see a problem with taking us – me, Percy, Grover and two of Grover's friends – along. (Annabeth wasn't coming.) At that point, everything seemed alright. And then, my uncle asked The Question.

Uncle Polly (again, my nickname for him is not a fact to be mentioned; the same reason as with Annabeth) has never been the one to care much about the rules, what drives my aunt crazy. This time, he was feeling too lazy to drive us to New York himself, so he offered us the keys, ignoring the fact that none of us was sixteen. Well, if I don't count the girls from the archery club, but they had occupied the back part of the bus as soon as they got in, sending a clear message that they didn't want to have anything in common with us. And at that point, I didn't want to have anything in common with them, either, so that was okay by me.

I hoped for once that I'd be overlooked. I was not eager to sit on the driver's seat; the biggest reason was because I hadn't really tried driving before. Neither making a fool of myself, nor killing us all sounded all that tempting to me. Looking back, maybe I should've tried to hide amongst the archers.

At first, one of Grover's friends, Nico, volunteered to drive the bus. Uncle Polly dismissed the idea immediately, what was understandable, as Nico was ten, and he looked ten. No cop would've believed that he was sixteen. Though in the end, Nico might've done a better job than me, but more on that later.

Grover volunteered next, but having Grover drive would've been dangerous, what with his muscular disease and stuff. No offence to Grover, but I didn't want to be there when his legs gave up and he couldn't step on a pedal in a crucial situation. And neither did Uncle Polly, it seemed, as he told 'No' to Grover, too.

Then, Uncle Polly's eyes found me, even though I was trying to make myself seem as small as possible. From his point of view, I was the perfect candidate – I could actually pass for a sixteen-year-old and there was no objective reason why I shouldn't be allowed to drive, so he gave me the keys and put a 'Warning – student driver' sign on the windshield. Biggest. Mistake. Ever.

Uncle Polly insisted that I should be the one to drive his bus, so under his supervision, I sat behind the steering wheel, feeling like I was going to be sick. And when I saw the rearview mirror, I noticed that I looked like that, too, what didn't exactly comfort me.

The steering wheel was the first thing I found, so I gripped it with all my might, glad I could be sure at least of something. Otherwise, I was completely lost about what I should do. I mean, I knew that the pedals were for going faster and slower and the steering wheel was used for turning, I even found out how to turn the blinkers on and off – Yay for me! – but that was all. I knew what would happen after I do something, but I didn't know _how_ it would happen, how it would _feel _like, and I was nervous. I hoped the moment when I'd have to turn the engine on would never come.

Of course, no such luck. And when I finally got the guts to do something, I stepped on it; like, _really_ stepped on it. I could feel the force push me into the seat and I remember someone screaming. The shock made me stiffen; I realized that sudden movements were certainly not good, so I decided to move as little as possible from then on. Unfortunately, that also meant I did not loosen my feet; the accelerator stayed on the floor.

Until this day, I still don't know how I managed not to crash during the whole way, but whichever divinity oversees road safety, I owe them big time. It's truly a miracle nobody was harmed by my totally atrocious driving (s)kills. Well, at least not permanently physically harmed, anyway.

Still, the whole experience was traumatic for me. I honestly don't remember much of it, and I'm happy for that. The whole time, I felt feverish. I was shaking and I felt like either throwing up, fainting, or best-case scenario – both. Percy and Uncle Polly kept shouting advice at me while struggling to stay in their seats and keep their dinner in, but even when I registered them, I only snapped something, wishing for them to keep quiet. I know they meant it well, and I knew it back then, too, but disturbance was the last thing I needed at the moment, when I was barely able to keep the bus going.

It was only lucky that I hadn't run into a traffic jam. Speeding like my butt was on fire (you don't have to picture that in your mind, alright?), I did the eight-hour-drive in record time – a little above five hours. Of course, there was also the fact that on the way back, there were no breaks, as I didn't trust my legs at all. Overtaking slower cars left and right, I felt exactly like I was in one of those games where stuff is slowly coming towards you and if you touch something, you explode. Well, except in this real-life version, there were no check-points and I had no spare lives in case I… changed the outer shape of the bus a little.

Not once during those five hours did I loosen the pressure on the accelerator. I was… alright, I'll say it. I was afraid. However dangerous it was to drive like I did – with constant speed and only using the steering wheel – it seemed to work, and I was scared that if I changed something, I'd lose the little control I had over the situation; and even then, my heart was hammering in my throat. Also, I had the feeling I couldn't move my feet even if I tried; my fear seemed to have locked them in some kind of cramp. It was horrible.

I guess it's not going to come off as a surprise when I say that the journey ended in a disaster. I mean, unless someone's begun building underwater parking lots on lake bottoms, but for some reason, I find that unlikely.

Yeah, that's right; with me as the driver, the bus ended up in a lake. Great for Biology field trips, but Uncle Polly didn't look all that excited about studying the fauna of the lake. I didn't have the heart to remind him it wasn't me who had decided I'd be the one driving, though.

Even though we were in a lake, it was an enormous relief to me when we finally stopped. (And for everyone else, too, I think; their green faces were expressive enough.) My hands and legs felt completely numb, and when I tried to stand up, they didn't even feel like they were mine at first, but after some time, blood found its way there, too. And while I felt slightly dizzy when I suddenly wasn't sitting anymore, after swimming my way to the shore, I mostly felt happy the torture had finally ended.

The good thing was that the lake wasn't all that far from our destination – we could finish the journey on foot, leaving Uncle Polly to deal with the bus and the towing service. We all needed to stretch our legs a bit anyway. And along the way, I gave myself a promise I intend to keep: To never, ever, drive a bus again. Up 'till now, I've denied every opportunity I got.

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_to be continued..._


	2. I'm Chased by My Dinner-to-Be

_Okay, here's the second chapter. Thanks to Mayhaah for reviewing and putting the story on alert._

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The second moment I'm going to describe happened only a couple of days after the disastrous bus incident. And while, thankfully, I wasn't putting anyone's lives on the line during this… situation, it doesn't mean I wasn't close to a panic attack.

Do you remember that when we were leaving Maine, my aunt and Annabeth stayed behind? Well, a few days later, we got the news that they were both in San Francisco – or, well, Mount Tam, to be precise – and they needed our help. So, Grover, Percy, I and two archers volunteered to go. The only problem was that we had no money and I was certainly not about to call Uncle Polly.

In the end, we decided to hide in a freight train, which took us as far as to New Mexico, where we ended up in an out-of-the-civilization little town called Cloudcroft. There was no bus station, no way to hail a taxi (which we would've had to taxi-jack anyway); I was surprised trains visited this place. Though, as Grover said, there was a coffee shop! Hip – hip – hooray, Grover; how was that supposed to help us?

Another bad news: The group of bone-thin people we'd angered in the Smithsonian (don't ask for details, or at least not in public; Annabeth doesn't know about that incident) had followed us all the way to Cloudcroft. We didn't see them on the train, but then again, you can't move around so freely on a freight train. For all I know, they could've been hiding in the next car.

Anyway, we ran into them in the middle of Cloudcroft, and it seemed like even the peaceful mountain atmosphere hadn't calmed them down. On the contrary, they looked even angrier than before. And, somehow, they had managed to get their bony hands on the New Mexico police uniforms, too, so we couldn't even count on the _real_ police coming to help us, as they'd think the impostors were from their ranks. So if the police helped anybody, it would be them.

Grover had been acting weird ever since he'd drunk that coffee, so when four of the angry guys found us (and then promptly informed the other eight about it), there were only four of us, who were capable of defending ourselves.

It all came down to four one-on-one fights between us and them, but that wasn't the scary part of that day, except maybe for a little while when I thought two of the guys, who had ganged up on Percy, had struck him unconscious or worse. The scary part came later.

The fights weren't shaping up well. The guys seemed to have infinite stamina, and we… well… didn't. I'll admit, I felt helpless when I saw the 'cops' as fresh as ever, when we were sweaty and exhausted. At that moment, none of us felt really optimistic about our chances. We all knew that unless a miracle happened, we'd lose, and I don't want to know what we would've looked like afterwards.

Fortunately, a miracle happened, and we were saved by a pig. And I'm not talking about some smelly, dirty-minded guy with no table manners; I mean an actual, reet-ing wild boar, the predecessor of every Chilli'n'Cheese-Stuffed Barbecue Pork Burger. Ugh, I feel hungry now.

Grover kept on rambling how the pig was a blessing from the Wild, and at first, I was inclined to believe him, when the sight of the animal sent the fake cops running away. Then, however, the pig turned its attention on us. Suddenly, I didn't feel so blessed anymore.

The pig – boar, whatever – was enormous. If I saw it in a movie, I'd say there's no way a pig that big could exist, but when it squealed its battle reet so loudly that it made my ears ring – and mind you, I'm used to loud noises, as music can't be good if it isn't loud – I grasped the concept of its existence pretty quickly.

For some reason, none of us felt like getting run over by the pig, which was evident by the way we kept rolling away or running whenever it charged us. Eventually, we all ran away in different directions, hoping to confuse the pig. Who to kill first, huh? That's the dilemma of the day.

Percy and I ran together, though, so maybe that's why the pig chose us as its target. Or, it could've had a personal vendetta against us, as out of the five of us, Percy and I love pork the most. But I can tell you, it would take more than just a big boar to make me turn vegetarian. Meat for the win!

Um, anyway, at that time, I found a large metal platter thingy in the woods. (We were running out of the town, not wanting to cause the bankrupt of the insurance companies.) It looked like someone had thrown it away, literally, when he/she wasn't satisfied with it. I don't know why; there was a picture of a screaming woman with horribly messy hair in the middle (revenge against a teacher, maybe?) and it was so precisely done, it gave me the creeps; but times like these make me understand Grover and his fight against littering.

I took the platter along. If we needed, we could use it as a shield against the pig – or, if Percy decided to play smart with me, a platter to the head would be a much more effective shut-up tool than a fist.

Even with the platter in my hands – because Percy couldn't be bothered to be a gentleman and volunteer to take it – we were managing to keep the gap between us and the pig. We were running uphill, and the pig's thin legs and hooves were making it difficult for it to run fast; they always either got stuck deep in the snow or made the pig slide downhill.

When we reached the top of the mountain, we were free to enjoy the view. Cloudcroft looked beautiful and the other mountains around us were creating a picture-perfect scene, but the pig, struggling to reach us several feet underneath, just topped it all.

Percy found some old rusty train tracks on the other side, so we decided to follow them. If we managed to lose the pig somehow, at least we'd find the way back to Cloudcroft. It sounded far better than asking a nearby bear for directions – to me, at least.

Our situation wasn't looking so bad at the moment. Slowly but surely, the pig was falling behind, unable to keep a steady pace on the slippery mountain side. And then, it all turned around, when Percy and I ran into that tunnel.

No, the tunnel didn't cave in or anything; that part was alright. What followed afterwards, though, wasn't so much. Behind the tunnel, only an old, narrow trestle bridge was connecting the two ends of a deep valley. I was so not going to test the strength of that bridge, least of all with the platter in my hands. It freaking looked like it would shatter to pieces if I as much as set a foot on it!

I slowed down, trying to tell Percy that maybe crossing the bridge wasn't the best idea. I realized what he wanted – I mean, it was obvious that if the pig tried to follow us to the other side of the valley, the bridge would break under its weight – but Percy said he wasn't sure if the bridge would hold our own weight, either. That's not what I call reassuring. When I imagined being halfway through the bridge and suddenly finding nothing but air under my feet and the ground seventy feet below… well, it made me feel quite nauseous.

Only when we came out of the tunnel on the other side, though, did I voice my concerns to Percy. I told him firmly that I was not about to find out just how weak the bridge was. With no time to spare, Percy settled for another plan, and that's where the scary part comes in.

Did I say that crossing the bridge looked like a bad idea? Well, what Percy came up with was even worse. He tugged the platter out of my hands, told me to stand in it, and then, if you please, he tackled me, football style, and we both went sliding down the steep hill into the valley, right where I didn't want to fall in.

Well, it wasn't really sliding. I guess it was something between snowboarding and free-falling. Either way, I felt like I had left my stomach up by the tunnel exit. It was only fortunate that Percy had the general idea how to snowboard, because with him steering, we managed to avoid most of the big rocks or muddy areas. It was impossible to avoid running into trees, though, so in no time, Percy and I looked like porcupines. I'm in no place to complain, though, as I don't think I was being very helpful by standing stiff as a tree, shutting my eyes tightly and struggling not to throw up or pass out.

I was more than happy when we finally stopped. My heart was racing and it took a while until I was able to calm down completely. Thankfully, neither of us was seriously hurt, it was mostly minor cuts caused by twigs and needles, which could heal very quickly.

The pig, driven by inertia, was unable to stop. It set its hooves on the bridge, which collapsed, just as I had predicted. The pig fell down the valley and at the bottom, it ended up buried so deep in the snow, only parts of its head and back were visible. Trapped, it couldn't move at all.

I took several deep breaths, watching the pig in its pointless struggle against the snow, and I shook the needless off my hair; it was already spiked enough without them. Meanwhile, our friends showed up by the tunnel and they were calling at us. They had probably followed our footsteps. I yelled at them that we were down in the valley, and we were okay, so they shouldn't worry.

Then, I moved to Percy. I wanted to tell him my exact, first-hand feelings about the horrible platter ride, but before I could even get to that, Percy pointed at the pig's brown back. After all that we'd just been through, he asked me if I wanted to take a ride; when the pig was so deep in the snow, I wouldn't have problems with climbing onto it. Can you believe the nerve of that guy?

Okay, on another note, I honestly don't like being reminded of those two situations. I had been acting like such a wimp in both of them. Generally, I deeply dislike feeling useless, but those two times… I'll say it like this: Traveling high-speed in something that's almost uncontrolled, somewhere where a crash is awaiting every second; that's just not my speed. Forgive the pun.

I could also say that I was scared when in a restaurant, I heard Grover yell, "Burrito fight!", but that was another kind of scared. And, to be honest, I'd rather not describe the food fight that followed. Just let me tell you that ever since then, burrito-faced weirdos have started appearing randomly in my dreams. I wish they wouldn't, as such dreams make dream-me have cannibalistic thoughts.

I guess I've been rambling on for too long; I should probably stop now before I run out of space on this paper, too. You should probably sew the three papers together with a stapler or something.

Whew. Never, ever, in my life, have I written more than right now on one go. My hand's hurting.

So yeah, maybe Thalia gets scared… sometimes… but remember; if you start mentioning it too much, she'll be more than happy to rearrange your face.

_Th Li _

Umm, and… I know I was supposed to fit between 350 and 400 words, but… zero means nothing, so if I fit in the original word range with nothing added to it – like, between 3500 and 4000 words – I shouldn't get penalized, right? (Wink, wink.)

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_The end. Tell me what you thought :)_


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